


A Time for Saying Goodbye

by MinervaDashwood



Series: Maddy Brosca [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Goodbyes, Grey Wardens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 03:51:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2717807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinervaDashwood/pseuds/MinervaDashwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for DA:I, especially if Alistair remained a Grey Warden in your import.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Time for Saying Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> After my Inquisitor met Alistair and asked him about the Hero of Ferelden, this scene formed in my head. 
> 
> It's intentionally vague and secretive--much like Alistair was in that conversation--so I mean for it to be more emotional than explanatory.

“We can’t wait on this.”

“I know.” Alistair dragged his fingers through his hair. “But I don’t want to leave, either. Clarel is--“

“Yes.” Maddy rose from her stool by the fire, and jabbed the logs with a poker. She heard Alistair lean back in his chair and without looking knew he was drumming his fingers on the armrest.  

The less they spoke of it, the better.For the past year the order had felt less like a band of brothers and more like something broken and jagged, a sword in dire need of mending.

She set down the poker, watching the flames rise into points and disappear.“Behrat always made us work in pairs. It had a lot of advantages, tactically. And like the Crows, kept the left hand from knowing the right.”

Alistair sighed. “We have too many secrets to keep, already. To keep them from each other--“

Maddy turned and smiled at him.“You and I have no secrets, love.”

He didn’t return her smile and insteadstared at the fire, lost in thought. It was an adequate enough response. Maddy’s intent was not to provoke sentimentality, but to silence him. Alistair had ever been quick to voice his thoughts, although it was an increasingly dangerous time to do so.Perhaps it seemed they were alone, but Maddy believed that walls had ears, just like the stone.

She knew he thought of their mages, since every last one of them called to Orlais with little explanation. Stranger still were the lack of orders for the rest of them. 

Maddy and Alistair had spent little enough time in this room they shared at the outpost, where the remaining Ferelden wardens were gathered.This should have been a time to treasure, but the stillness was too eerie.It almost made her want to revisit Orzammar, if only for a chance to kill something.Darkspawn preferably, but she was nearly past the point of caring.

Tiger yawned lazily and padded up to his rug before the fire.Maddy remembered the day she’d met the mabari and thought it was a tiger simply because of the stripes painted onto its fur. Had it really been so long ago?

She had a chair of her own by the fire, but she ignored it.Instead, she sat on Alistair’s lap and rested her head on his shoulder. His arms encircled her and pulled her close. He nuzzled her hair, and she pressed a kiss into his tunic, wishing he could hold her like this for days.

But time was a precious resource, whittled away by waiting and thinking. 

Morrigan would know what to do. Maddy could almost picture the witch glaring at them, one hand on her hip. _“You know well enough you must go, my friend.Waiting will not change that.”_

How could it be that the year of the Blight held all of Maddy’s fondest memories? There had been their wedding, yes, amidst those six months at the capital. But nothing had held as much _meaning_ as their camp, with all the others.

“I miss them,” she whispered into Alistair’s shirt. “I could send word to Leli--“

“No.”

“You’re right,” Maddy agreed, lifting her head to look at him.

This time, Alistair _did_ smile, and smoothed her hair with his hand. “I love you.”

She blushed, still bashful and heartsick after all these years, and kissed him.Alistair remained the only person in the whole world who hadchosen her and had never left. She could line up all of her mistakes and shoot them straight through with a single arrow.But _this_ \--she straddled his lap and hooked her arms around his neck--would never be amongst them.

Alistair’s lips left hers, and he kissed his way along her jaw until he found that sweet spot on her neck and lingered.

She clutched handfuls of his hair, pressing her body against him. “I have to go,” she whispered.

He paused his ministrations for half a moment and breathed against her skin. “Tomorrow.” He held her tightly, as he kissed his way past her clavicle.

Maddy shivered--in pleasure and fear--and said nothing as Alistair carried her to their bed.What she could not tell himwith words, she said in other ways.  

When morning came, she left him with a kiss and a promise, not knowing when--or if--she would see him again.

 

 

 


End file.
